WC 2003 - Angry fans hurl bombs, attack police at Kolkata

Kolkata: Drunken cricket fans, dejected after India failed to lift the World Cup, threw crude home-made bombs and attacked a police vehicle in eastern India, injuring five policemen, police said Monday. The policemen were injured, one of them seriously, when an angry mob turned violent in Baragarh village in Hooghly district, about 50 kilometers away from North-East of Kolkata, capital of the eastern state of West Bengal, police said. West Bengal police deputy inspector Narayan Chandra Ghosh said that immediately after the match on Sunday, about 20 drunken youths hurled crude bombs at a mobile police vehicle.Police fired live rounds to disperse them. Ghosh said there were no arrests.He said a heated argument over India's defeat among youngsters in the industrial city of Howrah, about 20 kilometers west of Kolkata, also sparked violence early Monday. No one was injured. Ghosh said security outside Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly's residence was stepped up to check any demonstration by cricket fans. Ganguly's house and that of team-mate Mohammed Kaif were stoned by mobs after India was beaten by Australia early in the tournament.On Sunday, millions of cricket fans all over the country, who had planned victory rallies if India had won, abandoned their plans and remained indoors.Posters of the Indian players, decorated earlier with flowers and miniature lamps in clubs and big buildings, were ripped off walls and Indian flags were taken down.Copyright AFP 2001